OLD TOWN – At cross country meets, it’s easy to get caught up watching the speediest runners fly over hill and dale, and to assume that individual champs pave the way to success.

They certainly help.

But in this gritty team-oriented sport, coaches and insiders look at things a bit differently. Call it a pack mentality, if you will.

Because as the team champs at Saturday’s 53rd Sectional Invitational proved – again – if you’ve got no pack, you end up in the back.

Just ask the Hampden Academy girls.

“It was kind of amazing when we started doing races and we were all together,” Hampden Academy junior MacKenzie Rawcliffe said, explaining the Broncos pack attack.

“And after Oriana, we don’t have a set order. It’s usually mixed up,” Rawcliffe said.

“Oriana” is Hampden standout Oriana Farley, who battled dehydration and staggered across the finish line with an atypical fourth-place finish on Saturday.

But back in the pack? The Broncos were rolling.

Sophomore Amelia Potvin finished seventh, a spot ahead of junior Molly Balentine. Juniors MacKenzie Rawcliffe and Shelly Estes finished 10th and 11th.

That effort deflected the impact of a 1-2 finish by Ellsworth’s Brie Jellison and Lacie Dow, and gave the Broncos a 40-49 win over the improving Eagles. Bangor finished third with 106 while Old Town had 110 and Brewer scored 117.

Jellison finished the 3.03-mile course in 19 minutes, 11 seconds while Dow was one second back.

The time gap – or pack time – between the Broncos second and fifth runners was a miniscule 34 seconds. And between Farley and No. 5, it was just 1:16.

In the boys race, Ellsworth star Steve DeWitt bolted away from the field after a mile and cruised to a 29-second win over Caribou’s Jeff Alden in 15:54.

But Alden’s Vikings tucked its five runners into a 1:16 pack and parlayed that group effort into a 55-59 win over the Eagles. Brewer was third in the 14-team field with 92 while Mount Desert Island (95) and Hampden (138) rounded out the top five.

Neither course record was challenged: Farley set the girls mark of 19:03 in 1999, while current Stanford University standout Louie Luchini established the boys standard of 15:28 in 1997.

In the boys meet, Alden tracked DeWitt in the early going, before the Ellsworth star opened up a sizeable gap.

“I stuck with him for a mile and a half, and then he started to get away from me,” Alden said.

But Alden was encouraged by the effort of his teammates.

“The guys behind me are really improving,” Alden said. “They’re coming together real well.”

Chris Blackstone finished third, while Anthony Hessert (13th), Brian Powers (18th) and Matt Bard (22nd) rounded out the top five for the Vikes.

Ellsworth’s Lucas Sitterly took fourth and Joey DeWitt – Steve’s brother – was 10th. Eric Rudolph also cracked the top 20, finishing in 16th.

The Eagles and the Vikes are two of Class B’s top teams, and will face each other four times from now until the end of the season.

“We’re gaining on ’em,” Steve DeWitt said. “They beat us pretty handily at our first meet, the Ellsworth [Invitational], but I think everybody’s improving.”

The Ellsworth and Hampden girls find themselves in the same position as the Caribou and Ellsworth boys: They’re both in Class B, and will see plenty of each other in the coming weeks.

Jellison, who had lost two previous seasonal meetings to Farley by 30 seconds and a minute, said she was surprised when ended up passing the Hampden ace with about a mile to go.

“It was a shock,” Jellison said. “Usually I see her far away, on a corner or something. I was with Heather Clark and [Farley] was right there. It was unexpected.”

Hampden coach Dick Balentine said the meet set up an interesting scenario for the rest of the season.

“As we get closer to November, things get more serious, but [Ellsworth is] a great bunch,” Balentine said. “They’re young, and [coach] Andy [Beardsley] does a good job with them. We’re gonna have some good battles, I’m sure.”

Farley agreed.

“I think they’re gonna be someone we have to be looking over our shoulder for awhile,” she said.